In the morning, beautiful weather, some wind early. At 7:30, 75°F [23.9°C]. A great many mosquitoes early, which the wind dispelled somewhat. To the left we soon reached [a] chain of clay hills, which had a uniform grayish brown color, with strange cones and domes; before them, green hills covered with various kinds of debris. Forest soon appeared along both banks. [As soon as] our men first left the ship, they found elk antlers and caught young birds. Rosebushes everywhere beneath the cottonwoods. Many tracks of deer, elk, and buffalo in the soft mud on the bank; crows called in the forest. Mr. Culbertson, who had gone into the forest, tracked very much game and saw a buffalo, which took flight. Today we saw several pairs of the wood duck (Anas sponsa). Our men were pulling along a level prairie beyond the forest; it had a 10-foot-high steep bank on which the beautiful yellow aster ([— —]) of exceptional size grew abundantly; some blossoms had a diameter of 4″ 3″‘. Opposite this prairie there were forest and willow thickets beyond which the strange clay hills peered forth again. Mr. Bodmer sketched them (sketch G.).

Along the bank a swamp delayed our men; therefore, several were sent out in the dinghy beyond the swamp into the willows. There they fastened a rope, which was also fastened to the boat in order to pull it over [to that place]. The men moved along the deck in a row and pulled; we made it over successfully. The next point of land, which immediately followed on the same side, was a soft, muddy, sandy soil, the difficulty of which we recognized and hence put twenty-nine men on the cordelle. They took off some of their clothes, and work began. Sinking into the mud up to their waists, they held the rope; finally they went so deeply into the water that most of them were swimming. Twelve of them, however, who could not swim, went back and made a long detour.

In the north [there] arose a black thunderstorm, which advanced with thunder and violent bolts of lightning. We still succeeded in navigating around the point and mooring the boat behind a tall cottonwood forest, where it was rather well protected. Heavy rain poured down and from the top ran everywhere into our lightly constructed cabin; fortunately, the rain passed after half an hour and the storm with it. The temperature had cooled down, [and] the mosquitoes had disappeared, so we continued our journey after two o’clock. We had just passed the place that is called Cut-Off [Island] (L’isle au Coupé), because the river had broken straight through here at one of its big bends and, directly opposite the swampy promontory, formed the aforementioned big, flat island. One always follows the new breakthroughs of the Missouri, where the channel is. Above this bend the river was very wide and majestic, now high and full. To the left [is] wide, flat lowland, behind which the hill chain arises in the distance, with prairie between it and the low willows on the bank. To the right, before the forest, a slew extends inward, before which the land is covered with dense willows. The willows here, as generally along the entire Missouri, seem to be of two kinds: one with very narrow leaves (Salix [— —]) and one with broader leaves (S. [— —]). The one with narrow leaves seems to predominate along the entire upper Missouri. These willow thickets are subject to continual destruction: the river tears them away and washes them into its current as soon as they are grown. It tears away here and deposits there; hence, for the most part, one sees only young willows.

We navigated straight across the Missouri and then pushed up along a steep clay bank on which there was a willow thicket. A pair of swans were shot at without success. Somewhat farther [on], Deschamps, who had killed an elk cow (biche), returned again. Dreidoppel went ashore with the combination over-and-under shotgun. We stayed here about twenty minutes, until the venison from the killed elk cow had been brought in. To the right we had passed a small river, which some Frenchmen call rivière Isle aux Trembles and the English Porcupine River. On the left bank we came upon another small river, which Lewis and Clark call 2,000 Miles River because, according to their calculation, the distance from here to the mouth of the Missouri is 2,000 miles. At the upper point of the brook, I got out with several hunters. Dreidoppel had seen a deer and was following its trail. Here the forest bordered on an extensive prairie, completely overgrown at this spot with Artemisia, where I found large elk antlers on the ground. Numerous isolated trees were completely dry and silver-gray. In one of them was the nest of Falco sparverius; I heard the chicks chirping, [and] the parents flew anxiously about. There were many big flycatchers (Muscicapa tyrannus, crinita, and others), and we came upon numerous completely fresh tracks of elk and deer; they formed broad trails toward the river. Dreidoppel roused a deer, and Saucier, our carpenter, shot it farther ahead in the prairie. The forest now had a narrow tip, and beyond it the prairie à la Corne de Cerf [Elkhorn Prairie] extended as far as the eye could see.

In this prairie there is a pyramid entirely of elk antlers, about 500 to 600 paces from the bank, which the Indians (Blackfoot) have piled up. One sees this pyramid, about 15 to 16 feet high and 12 feet in diameter, quite clearly from the river, since it stands completely isolated on the plain. The prairie was completely blanketed with individual round Cactus ferox, covered with its big, beautiful, soft yellow flowers. Both kinds, or varieties, grew here: the one I mentioned at Fort Union, with red stamens; and the other with light-yellow ones. Besides these, Artemisia and several other plants grew here profusely as well. Mr. Bodmer, Dreidoppel, Saucier, Deschamps (the hunter), and I went directly to the deer [elk] pyramid, which we found very interesting. Every Indian war party has the custom of placing antlers on this heap, whereby, as already said, a tall, broad, densely entangled mass of larger and smaller elk horns has arisen, among which one finds huge ones. The Indians have the custom of indicating the number of the warriors in their war party with red transverse stripes on the antlers. Mr. Bodmer began to sketch this monument. We took along a good antler with four red transverse stripes as a souvenir; it took hard work to get it loose.

Upon our arrival at the bank, we found that the keelboat had crossed to the other side, and the dinghy with three men was sent to fetch us. Dreidoppel had shot a prairie-hen that was running around on the prairie with her big chicks. She belonged to the species of sharp-tailed grouse (Tetrao phasianellus), a splendid, big bird. Scarcely had we reached the ship, when dark storm clouds came up; thunder and lightning with heavy rain were not long in coming, as soon as twilight fell. Large clumps of the bank and even entire trees plunged [into the river], something that makes sailing close to shore very dangerous. The interesting deer [elk] pyramid that we visited kept me occupied during the evening. It consists exclusively of elk antlers, some of which had been cast off, others piled on or stuck in with the skulls attached. They are bleached white, and several buffalo horns are also found among them; the whole thing is probably a medicine, to afford them good luck in hunting. Better weather at nine o’clock.